Wholesale inflation rises to an eight-year high to 7.39 pct in March 2021

Wholesale price-based Inflation rate in the country zoomed above 7 per cent driven by an increase in prices of fuel, food and manufactured goods.

As per the provisional data released for March 2021 by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade of the Commerce Ministry, the annual rate of WPI inflation stood at 7.39 per cent for March 2021 over the corresponding period of last year. Such a high level of WPI was last recorded in October 2012, when inflation was 7.4 per cent.

However, the month-on-month rate of inflation stood at 1.57 per cent.

The Department has said in its report that the prices of crude oil, petroleum products and basic metal substantially increased last month as compared to the corresponding month of last year. It also added that due to nationwide lockdown, the Wholesale Price Index for March last year was computed with a relatively low response rate and therefore the difference between the corresponding period this year has recorded a larger gap.

Inflation of the primary articles (Weight 22.62 per cent) rose 6.40 per cent in March from 1.82 per cent reported in February 2021. The fuel and power (Weight 13.15 per cent) rose 10.25 per cent in the reported month from 0.58 per cent in February 2021. The manufactured products (Weight 64.23 per cent) rose 7.34 per cent against 5.81 per cent. Similarly, inflation in the food index (Weight 24.38 per cent) rose to 5.28 per cent against 3.31 per cent.